Books Enjoyed, 6/26/13

Libby

5 years ago

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The next couple book posts are not, strictly speaking, just library books–some are books my three year old received for her birthday, and one is a chapter book I read for my own enjoyment alone (next week)! Just doing my part for truth-in-advertising.Princess Pigtoria And The Pea by Pamela Duncan Edwards

In the space of about 3 weeks, I have encountered 2 different books that take a fairy tale (or several) and spin it. Both with pigs. And they were both good. Who knew?!

Princess Pigtoria goes looking to get married for financial reasons, but ends up marrying for love (which is good, because the prince she encounters is a real loser). A cute revision of The Princess and the Pea. My kids enjoyed it, too.

This book didn’t really work for me. The premise is cute (a boy is bored while his older sister is babysitting, but gets some excitement at lunchtime), but the way it played out just didn’t seem that exciting to me.

However, my kids loved it. I’ve had to read it over and over multiple times, and even banned reading it for the remainder of a day. Obviously, the author and illustrator know something about what kids like that I don’t. Hence the 4 star rating.

One of my daughters received this for her birthday, and she loves, loves, loves it. The other two kids also like it. I think it’s ok, but won’t be a favorite for me.

The good: a decent retelling of the Gingerbread Boy, but it continues what happen to his (smarter) younger sister; it has some fun points and a happy ending; it’s a great read for younger siblings; the refrain is fun for kids to say aloud with you

The ok: some of the rhymes that the Gingerbread Girl calls out don’t really make sense until the end of the story, and it’s a little long for a before-bed or before-nap reading.

This is one I didn’t particularly care for, but my three year old loved. It’s the story of twin sheepdogs, and I thought going into it that the conflict would be whether Rap wanted to be a sheepdog or not, but it was a different, less compelling conflict. Rap gets dirty and the dirty spot won’t come off in the one place where he has a white stripe different from his brothers–everyone can’t tell them apart until Rip helps him get it off. Still, since it was a repeat request, I have to give it a little more credit than I normally would (hence the three star rating).